or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 31, 2006
Only So Many Ways To Be A Frothing Lunatic
I just came across this Charles Krauthammer column in Time from November, 2003:
No one likes us...Envy for America, resentment of our power, hatred of our success has been a staple...
The fact is that the world hates us...They hate us into incoherence...
The search for logic in anti-Americanism is fruitless. It is in the air the world breathes. Its roots are envy and self-loathing — by peoples who, yearning for modernity but having failed at it, find their one satisfaction in despising modernity's great exemplar.
I realize it's supposed to disqualify you from civilized discourse if you point out the obvious historical antecedents to Krauthammer's weepy hysteria.
Their hate knows no boundaries!The German people knew its enemies, their hate for the German Reich that under Adolf Hitler had once again become a world power...
We have been engaged in this world-wide struggle for five years, and have again proved our manhood against our hate-filled enemies...
Because they have no stature themselves, neither human nor political, they envy the genius, the unreachable, the creative spirit, that seeks a new world...
In but a hundred years, German industry conquered the world in peaceful competition...That aroused the envy of the British and Americans...Even average newspaper readers are part of the huge army of hate-filled enemies of the Reich...
It really would be easier not to compare Krauthammer's writing to Nazi propaganda if he didn't write exactly like a Nazi propagandist.
Posted at October 31, 2006 10:39 AM | TrackBackWell, gawdalmighty, with a name like that, what do you expect? Kraut+Hammer? Almost as bad as Jesús B.
Posted by: Jesus B. Ochoa at October 31, 2006 11:19 AMI find this resemblance very interesting --what do we call the state of mind Krauthammer is in? Oh yeh, self-deception.
Posted by: Dimitria at October 31, 2006 01:17 PMWell, this is just wrong. I am very admiring of my rich neighbor. It matters not that he acquired his modern bounty by hitting me over the head and stealing it from my house.
Posted by: Realrealgone at October 31, 2006 01:28 PMHmmm, in a strange way, this makes sense. The righties used to say that the world hates us for our freedom, and so they got rid of those pesky things like habeas corpus and limits on executive power.
Yet, the world still hates us even after we got rid of our freedoms! So now the righties say it is because they envy our success.
Hence, the Bushies are trying hard to outsource our economy as fast as possible. The sooner we make China the dominant world power, the sooner the world will start hating them and leave us alone.
Posted by: Whistler Blue at October 31, 2006 01:42 PMI like "modernity's great exemplar". Charles Krauthammer, the splendid blonde beast.
Posted by: abb1 at October 31, 2006 02:57 PMHave you ever seen Pico Iyer talk? He travels a lot, and goes out of his way to go to "anti-American" places like North Korea and Yemen. He can tell people he's Indian, British or American. He found, uptil 2004, anyway, that he was almost always best off saying American--and that people treated him with immense amounts of kindness and hospitality, generally, but particularly then. The roguer the nation, the warmer the people. After 2004, who knows.
Posted by: Saheli at October 31, 2006 03:24 PMExcept that Krauthammer is a Jew.
Posted by: at October 31, 2006 04:20 PMKrauthammer? More like Malleus Maleficarum.
Krauthammer...Witchhammer...
Is it any wonder everything looks like a nail to him?
Posted by: floopmeister at October 31, 2006 08:15 PMExcept that Krauthammer is a Jew.
I know, and he's also a cripple and, of course, a frothing lunatic; and yet inside, deep down in his heart he is a splendid blonde beast, modernity's great exemplar.
Posted by: abb1 at November 1, 2006 03:10 AMGood grief! You all seem to have followed Krauthammer into the classic error of assigning human emotion to something that's only an abstract idea--politically, anyway. There is no "WORLD" that can see and think and feel. There are only individuals, one by one. This is fuzzy thinking and sloppy writing. The idea of "our enemies" hating America and our "friends" liking us is what leads--and has always led--to the justification of war.
Posted by: Mimi at November 1, 2006 07:59 AMkrauthammer? more like warhammer!
anyway, it wouldnt surprise me if he actually sourced his article and related frothing-at-mouth from the german.
Posted by: almostinfamous at November 1, 2006 09:45 AM"I know, and he's also a cripple and, of course, a frothing lunatic; and yet inside, deep down in his heart he is a splendid blonde beast, modernity's great exemplar."
Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.
Posted by: at November 3, 2006 12:33 PM
